


Not Safe

by Laylah



Series: boys of summer [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Community: kink_bingo, Fake RPF, Flirting, M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During their first film together: Kimberly and Archer shoot a tense scene, go out for drinks afterward, and start slashing their characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Safe

Jenner ducks in the door to his room, upstairs from most of the heist crew, breathing hard. His hands are shaking, and he runs his fingers through his ponytail, tugging on it, a nervous habit.

The door swinging shut behind him is almost silent. "She really got to you, didn't she?" Fletcher asks, his voice flat and inflectionless. His eyes glitter in the low light. "Does that mean she was right?"

"Get out," Jenner says. He's usually one of the calmer members of the crew, but now he's snarling. "What the fuck are you even doing here?"

"Asking you questions that you don't seem to want to answer," Fletcher says. A quick scuffle, and then he has Jenner pinned against the door, one pallid hand wrapped tight in the front of Jenner's shirt, the other holding the knife. "Was she right?" The tip of the knife grazes Jenner's Adam's apple, drags upward to dimple the skin beneath his jaw. " _Are_ you a fag?"

Jenner's eyes are wide, the pupils blown, his lips skinned back from his teeth in a grimace. "Fuck you," he says.

Fletcher's smile is slow, calculated, malicious. "Fascinating," he says, and lunges into a kiss.

He doesn't move the knife. Jenner's hands come up, reflexively grasping at the air, and he squeezes his eyes shut—not fighting. Not quite. A tiny bead of blood trickles from his throat and down the blade.

"And _cut_ ," Bradley barks. "That was your best yet."

Archer lets go of Kimberly's shirt, blinking as he steps back; Robin Fletcher's cold focus fades from his eyes. "All right?"

"I'll live," Kimberly says, shrugging his shoulders to work Mark Jenner's tension out of them. He reaches up and touches his throat gingerly, bringing his fingertips away smeared with a few drops of blood. "Might want a band-aid, if we still have that first aid kit around here somewhere."

"Shit," Archer says, looking at the knife in alarm, as if it's turned on him. Kimberly has to smile. "Sorry, that was—I didn't realize I was pressing that hard."

Kimberly shakes his head, then presses his thumb over the cut when that makes more blood run from it. "Seriously, don't panic. It barely hurts."

"Right, we're done with that scene for today," Bradley says. "Kimberly, make sure you get that cleaned up. And somebody talk to Sheska about prop weapons and safety." The bluster is how he shows he cares about them. "Fury, tell me Camera 1 got a good angle on that blood."

And _that_ is how he shows he cares about the flick. Kimberly figures it's time to get off the set, before Bradley changes his mind and calls them back to work on a different angle or a different shot or something. He slips between cameras, ducking under a light rig and heading for the stairs. Archer is following him, he realizes; he glances back over his shoulder. "First blood whet your appetite?" he says.

Archer grimaces. "I really didn't mean to," he says.

"I know," Kimberly says. "I'm just giving you shit. It's no big deal."

Archer still insists on cleaning the little cut himself, cool hands washing it clean and applying the band-aid. And he sort of hovers for the rest of the evening, making amazing pained faces every time Greed says something obnoxious about them having chemistry you could cut with a knife. Which is about every five minutes, once he realizes how much it gets to Archer. At least one of them is getting on Kimberly's nerves, though he hasn't entirely decided which one.

He doesn't make up his mind until quitting time, ten-thirty-ish, when Greed starts trying to hound the rest of the cast into going out "enjoy the nightlife," which is Greed-speak for "hit as many strip clubs as possible before everybody runs out of cash for lap dances." And as much fun as it sounds to give jaded ex-showgirls money to shake their plastic tits in his face....

"Sorry, other plans," Kimberly improvises. "Archer's taking me out for drinks someplace nice because he feels so bad about my grievous injury."

"If you'd rather I _didn't_ have any sympathy," Archer says, not missing a beat, "I'm sure I could find some other way to occupy my time. I wouldn't want you to miss the nightlife."

"And let you off the hook?" Kimberly says. "Not a chance."

Greed smirks. "Your loss," he says. "And make sure he gives you a safeword this time."

For a second, Kimberly can see Archer visibly fighting down the urge to argue. Arguing with Greed never makes things better. "Yeah, don't wait up for me, dad," Kimberly says, steering Archer toward the door before they can waste any more breath on Greed's theories about the sex they should be having.

The temperature's started to drop outside—it feels like a comfortable eighty degrees or so. The locals have been telling them they got lucky, showing up up to Las Vegas in the summer and hitting a week of ninety-five-degree highs instead of the usual hundred-plus. Kimberly honestly doesn't mind the heat, or the mouth-parching dry air, but he gets that complaining about the weather is one of those things you just do.

"Nice night," he says.

"Getting there," Archer agrees. "So where am I taking you?"

Kimberly shrugs. "Dunno," he says. "I figured we'd get a cab up to the Strip and see what looks good."

"That could take some searching," Archer says. "But all right."

It _does_ take some looking around, because just about everything on the Strip is too tacky for Archer. He apparently never learned how to appreciate tasteless commercial excess. Still, eventually they find a martini bar that seems to be going for a sort of James Bond theme, and that at least means they tone down the neon enough that it's not going to make anybody's eyes bleed.

They get a little table in the corner, and get some overpriced drinks, and about halfway down the first martini Archer starts to look a little less tightly wound. "Feeling better?" Kimberly says. "A little more convinced you didn't do any irreparable damage?"

Archer rolls his eyes. "I know you aren't seriously injured," he says. "It's the principle of the thing. I should have had more control over my actions than I did."

"That makes it sound like you wouldn't have minded cutting me up on purpose," Kimberly says. "Kinky." He's pushing too much, he's pretty sure. Archer's too straitlaced for that kind of stuff. He's—

"Without control," he says calmly, wearing Fletcher's detached expression, "there's no art to it."

Kimberly downs the rest of his martini in a hurry. "Maybe I should have gotten that safeword," he says.

"Or Jenner should have, at least," Archer says. He sips his martini like a civilized bastard, watching Kimberly over the rim. "For all the good it would do him."

"He's imaginary, he'll cope without one," Kimberly says. He motions for more drinks without looking away from Archer's face. Archer's one of the whitest guys he's ever met, almost scary pale, and drinking makes his cheeks flush pink. It looks good, that little touch of color. "Fletcher wouldn't put down the knife, would he?"

Archer shakes his head slowly. "Why would he want to do something like that?" he asks. He smiles, understated, barely a curve to the corner of his mouth. "His new friend reacts to it in such interesting ways."

Interesting. Huh. Kimberly waits for their waitress to put down a new round of drinks before he goes on. "Scared stiff is what does it for your man, yeah?"

"So to speak," Archer says. His smile twists the corner of his mouth just a fraction of an inch further. They're flirting. They're fucking flirting over whether one of their characters would—"Would he be?"

"Stiff?" Kimberly says. Archer's predatory composure is definitely getting _him_ going. "Yeah. I bet he would. Freaked out about it, not totally convinced he's safe from a stabbing. But he's still hard up, and Fletcher's hot."

Archer licks his lips. "Smart to be afraid. He's not safe. Not really." His face is settling into the detached, hungry viciousness he displays in character, and fuck if that's not getting Kimberly harder. "Fletcher _probably_ wouldn't cut him up before the job. At least not much. Maybe just enough to see a little blood and leave a few marks behind."

They're talking about characters, Kimberly reminds himself. He pictures the way Archer plays with Fletcher's signature knife in the background of ensemble shots, flipping it over his knuckles to catch it with a slap against his palm. Control again. "He could probably do a real number on Jenner's head that way if he tried," he says. "Leave him scared of the blade but not really wanting it to stop, either."

"Mmm." The look in Archer's eyes really does have some of Fletcher's intensity coming to the surface. That should be a warning bell. "He'd love that. He already knows what happens to people when he carves them up—but a chance to provoke all those complex reactions by _not_ letting blood? ...He'd probably talk about how interesting that was, too. I imagine he's quite the talker."

Kimberly has changed his mind. Archer just fakes being straitlaced. Under the neatly pressed clothes he's at least as kinky as Greed. Maybe more. "Yeah, I can see that. Telling Jenner what would happen if he pushed just a little bit harder here, twisted the knife there. Watching the kid try to panic without moving so he wouldn't get cut by accident."

"It's much too soon to cut him," Archer says. His voice is pitched like this is a fucking seduction. "After all, they have a job to finish before they can enjoy the rewards." He picks up his glass, tips back the rest of his drink, and when he goes on he's switched to a purely conversational tone. "And so do we, I'm afraid. I should be heading home—I'm scheduled early tomorrow."

 _You incredible cocktease_ , Kimberly thinks, though he tries to keep it off his face. Archer's right. They shouldn't get carried away this early in the shoot. "Yeah, it wouldn't hurt me to get some sleep, either," he says. "You want to share a cab?"

And hell, if Archer wants a slow burn before this thing between them explodes, well. Kimberly can give him that.


End file.
